Busy week

I had a busy week last week. As well as trying to understand economics, I went to a Transition Towns meeting and subsequently was asked to get involved with their food group (sadly not my town, and a couple of us were talking afterwards about doing it here, so I don’t know how much of my time I can give to the other lot, but I will try to be as helpful as I can).

Scientist Boyfriend finished exams and there was much rejoicing.

I went to visit friends in London, got lost in Putney thanks to some erroneous directions and angsted about what to do with my life and they were reasonably helpful

Scientist Boyfriend and I went to a Slow Food evening, and hobnobbed with all sorts of notable local food figures* and came away replete and furnished with an info sheet all about chillis and a DVD about disease.

Yesterday actually wasn’t busy, I just lounged around, pretty much, reading exciting books and staring at my tomatoes hoping they’ll go red (or, in the case of one bush, yellow). I appear to have successfully saved some tomato seeds and am waiting for them to dry out, but left them so long some of them sprouted so I’m now wondering if that means they won’t germinate next year??? Maybe I should have left them in the mouldy, watery sludge and experimented with hydroponic tomatoes in a mug…

Today I went to the Museum of English Rural Life which had an interesting exhibition on food, a wonderful settle with space in the back to hang bacon on, a beautifully inspiring wall of comments from children (and adults, judging from some of the handwriting) which made me want to weep and an awful lot of billhooks. If I’d known about the billhooks I’d have found out what the exciting hedgelaying tool that my great-grandfather and great-great-grandfather invented was so I could look out for it, but I didn’t. Ah well. And this evening we went and picked some blackberries and hopefully have enough to make wine! Hurrah!

And I found two Joanna Blythman books in charity shops, The Food We Eat (which I’ve read, but was good) and Shopped (which I haven’t yet), and How to Be a Bad Birdwatcher, as featured on the Wiggly Wigglers podcast (yonks ago).

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* For those interested in syntactic analysis, they were both [[notable] [[local food] figures]] and [[notable] [local] [food figures]]

Peak Oil, Climate Change and Campaigning Links

Rob Hopkins, Transition Handbook

“Environmentalists have often been guilty of presenting people with a mental image of the world’s least desirable holiday destination – some seedy bed and breakfast near Torquay, with nylon sheets, cold tea and soggy toast – and expecting them to get excited about the prospect of NOT going there. The logic and the psychology are all wrong.”

Barbara Kingsolver, Animal, Vegetable, Miracle

"Food is that rare moral arena in which the ethical choice is generally the one more likely to make you groan with pleasure."

Carlo Petrini

"A gastronome who is not also an environmentalist is an idiot. An environmentalist who is not also a gastronome is, well, sad."

Sharon Astyk

"I am, of course, firmly opposed to consumerism and corporatism in all its forms, and I believe that we are deeply confused about material needs and wants. Now let me explain how books and yarn are totally different than the material things that other people want ;-)…."

Raj Patel, at Slow Food Nation

"Biofuels, which is the preposterous policy that we should grow food not to eat it but to set it on fire."